Torn Water Read online

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sometimes I think I'd be better off without any of you. You're all fucking liars.’

  A passing car blares its horn as they make a sideways weave, briefly crossing the middle line of the road.

  ‘I'd drown the lot of you – drown you in your own fucking lies.’ She bangs her hand on the horn, and almost without him realising it his hand shoots out to rest on her arm to calm her.

  ‘Don't touch me! You make me sick – you all make me sick.’

  As soon as they reach home he bolts, running headlong for the fields that border the small estate, hearing the cries of his mother. When he looks back he sees her swaying in their doorway.

  ‘I felt him! I felt him!’ he shouts back at her.

  The wind sweeps away his words, steals them from his mouth and hurls them heavenwards. He imagines them climbing, pushing through the cold air, wriggling through the clouds and bursting through to where a small colony of fireflies hovers together in the far reaches of outer space.

  Letter to a Firefly

  James Lavery

  My Bedroom

  Night

  I believe in you. She doesn't, but I do. I know she didn't mean to hurt me. Please don't think too badly of her. Is it cold where you are? Are the days endless? Do you think of me? Was it chance that you came by? I've just started rehearsing a play. I'm enjoying it very much. I’m playing a character called Martini. He has an imaginary friend and he spends his time holding conversations with him. There was a huge bomb in the town today. I don't know if anyone died, but maybe you know better than I do. Was that you, that hot swish of light that flew by me? I think it was. Mum went crazy when I told her. She hasn't done that for a long, long time. She misses you, I know. She misses you.

  I felt you. Today I felt you like a hot sun. It made me feel safe. It made me feel warm. Do you have any friends up there? No women friends, though, I don't think Mum would like that. We all miss you. Teezy misses you. I see it in her eyes when she thinks no one is looking. It's like a tiredness that sits in the middle of them, like a small cloud. She used to tell me that you died for Ireland. I don't think Ireland cares: it just carries on as usual. Sometimes I lie in bed at night and imagine that I'm flying with you, two bright little dots of light travelling together, watching stars and planets whiz by.

  When I was smaller I believed that you had gone away to be an astronaut, that something had gone wrong and you couldn't get back. I know now that you are something better, something that doesn't need a spaceship. I know that you can see everything. You and your friends (do you have any?) are like small gods hovering everywhere, seeing how we're doing. I perform different deaths sometimes, for my friends. Most of the time, though, I just think them. I try to imagine what it would be like one minute to be me and then the next something else, a firefly like you. Is that what happens? Maybe not. I don't know.

  I feel strange, cold, because suddenly I don't think you're there. That happens a lot. It makes me feel stupid. You are there, aren't you? Dad?

  Love, James

  7. The Fight

  Sully and James's mother are fighting, they are at breakfast downstairs. James is still in bed: he can hear them from beneath the blankets he has pulled over his head. He can hear his mother's voice tighten as it is raised, like the sound her car clutch makes when she mistimes it. It is early: light is breaking in long lines in the sky.

  He closes his eyes as the fight moves from the kitchen into the living room. He car hear the force of Sully's walk ringing through the house. He can imagine him, his eyes darting wildly, and his pocked cheekbones red with anger.

  He can imagine his mother. He can see her pursuing him, spitting accusations, her hands drawing diagrams of betrayal in the cold morning air.

  He decides to get up and get out. Moving quickly, he dresses. He goes to the bedroom door and puts his ear to it. Slowly he turns the handle and pulls the door to him a fraction. The shouting has subsided. He goes towards the bathroom, carrying his shoes and socks, moving with guarded stealth on the landing carpet.

  He rounds the top of the stairs. His mother and Sully are seated on the settee below him. His mother's back is to him: her lime green cardigan seems pulled and grabbed at, her head is lowered, her shoulders tensed.

  ‘Fucker, Sully … bastard, fucker, pig …’ He mouths the words, each one a hiss, and pummels the air with short-pulled punches. ‘Fucker, Sully … bastard, fucker, pig.’ He bends himself double to get a better purchase on the blows, so they almost swing back into his own face. ‘Bastard! Bastard!’

  He reaches the bathroom, closes the door behind him and finishes dressing. He pulls the window open, grimaces as it scrapes, then grabs the outer sill and pulls himself out. Using his hands, he levers himself so that he sits precariously on the outside ledge, gripping the window runners, his legs knocking against the outside wall. Gingerly his fingers feel for the drainpipe, and he inches towards it. Using both arms, he pulls himself into a hug with it and descends.

  At about ten feet from the ground he throws a glance below him, then pushes away. He lands with a crunch on the gravel, and takes a moment to fix his collar and tie, then checks his satchel. He looks around: the world seems vaporous and magical. A shudder quickens in him, and he starts towards the woods.

  ‘Bastard Sully … Sully bastard. Bastard Sully.’

  He enters the woods at a gallop, then slows to a walk. He likes the woods, with their cathedral of trees and their small pools of stillness. He breaks off a long stripling and runs his palms along its knotty shanks. He puts it to his shoulder, one hand on the trigger, the other midway on the stock.

  He swings the rifle round, searching for danger, his finger poised to strike at any moment, his right eye squinted shut as he inches forward, his feet placed, his ears listening for the click of a mine trigger or the rustle of an enemy patrol. A pigeon breaks from the canopy above him, its wings clapping loudly in its panic to clear the trees.

  ‘Enemy at three o'clock!’ He screams the words in his most forceful German accent. He has always identified with the Germans. Teezy had often spoken of the special regard Hitler had for Ireland, offering De Valera freedom from the British in return for co-operation. In games of war, in the playground or on the way back from school, it was a real problem to find a ‘Brit’ among his friends. Arguments would rage as boy after boy refused, saying that if it came to it they would rather be a ‘wop Italian’ or a ‘sneaky Jap’, anything but a ‘Brit’.

  Suddenly he smiles to himself as he sees Sully's face loom into view, his head bloated like a football, a large cigar clamped between his teeth. Sully as Winston Churchill, Sully as fat Sir Winston Churchill. ‘We shall fight them on the beaches, fat smug Sir Sully Churchill …’

  The bird is almost free of the ceiling of the forest: he snaps his rifle up and tracks it, his finger lightly poised on the trigger.

  ‘Die, Herr Englander Sully Churchill, die – ’

  The bullets fly in a torrent. His shoulder bucks at their force.

  ‘Bam, bam, bam! Die, Sir Sully Pig Dog … Die … Bam, bam!’

  The British plane containing the fat head of Sully is dispatched; he sees it spiral into the trees and imagines Sully's body consumed by flames.

  ‘No mercy for the Englanders. No mercy.’

  Another pigeon breaks loose of the branches. He wheels to catch it in his sights and stops dead, the blood draining from his face, the stick in his hands pointing straight between the eyes of a real British paratrooper. For a moment they stay that way, until the soldier reaches out and takes the stick from James.

  The patrol walks him the short distance across the field and returns him to his mother. They search the house. James can hear the thud of their heavy boots as they move from room to room, upending beds and clothes. The one who caught him stays in the kitchen with them, eyeing them, his fingers tapping nervously on his gun. He can be no more than twenty, and his face is stained with camouflage paint, his helmet webbed with net
ting.

  Sully takes out his Old Holborn and rolls a cigarette, throwing the tobacco pouch on to the table. James's mother pats Sully's arm. He pulls it away and looks at the young soldier as he brings the gummed paper to his lips, never taking his eyes off him as his head lolls from side to side. He seals the cigarette and lights it, slaps the lighter down on the table. Eventually the other soldiers return.

  ‘Well, how many bombs did you find?’

  The sergeant steps forward. He is older than the others. He clears his throat as if he were a vicar addressing a congregation weary of the sermon. ‘Sorry, madam, but it's policy. A house like this in this area is to be searched. It's an area of known sympathies.’

  ‘Leave my house,’ she says.

  The soldiers depart. James watches through the window as they merge with the fields, their uniformed figures melting slowly into the landscape.

  Sully gets up, joins James at the window and inhales his cigarette hungrily. ‘Look at those fuckers … If I had my way …’ Then he stares at James. ‘Know what I'm saying?’

  James doesn't reply but moves away from him to sit at the kitchen table.

  James's mother begins to clear up, stacking the breakfast plates in the sink, snapping the tap on with a hard twist of her hand, running the hot water. She grabs the dishcloth and shakes it in brisk, flapping movements, the pedal bin open beneath it. Then she wipes the table. Suddenly she stops. Sully continues to look out at the fields, his hands now thrust into his back pockets. James's mother throws up her head and eyes her son. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you were doing? How did you get out?’

  ‘The bathroom window.’

  ‘Jesus, you could have frigging broken something! Why? Why?’

  Sully slowly turns to look at James. ‘James, you're doing my head in, son.’

  James doesn't say anything but returns his mother's look. She walks over to her son. ‘All this stuff … this dreaming of yours … It's not right. I haven't slept a bloody wink since last week … since the day in the town.’

  ‘That's not my fault,’ he says.

  ‘She's not friggin' saying that! Jesus!’ Sully has joined in.

  ‘Sully, let me handle it, OK?’

  ‘OK, OK … whatever. You're both as thick as that hill out there.’

  ‘Sully, haven't you caused enough trouble?’

  He sees Sully bite his lip and wheel away from them to resume his window vigil, pulling angrily on his cigarette.

  ‘James.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Come on, son …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stop all this.’

  ‘Stop all what?’

  Sully wheels back and advances slowly into the middle of the kitchen, angrily stubbing out his cigarette on a saucer. ‘Listen, kid, there's no fucking man in a suit, no friggin' firebugs – or pieces of effing light, OK? Get it into your thick skull. You're driving us all to distraction, for fuck's sake.’

  ‘Sully, no – Sully.’ His mother tries to stop him.

  ‘Pieces of bugs, for fuck's sake – you're cracked, you're frightening your mammy.’

  ‘Sully, that's enough.’

  ‘No, excuse me a fucking second here, Ann. I've had enough – I know what I'd do with him.’

  ‘Yeah, Sully. That's your answer for everything, isn't it?’

  So that's why they were fighting. That's why the two of them had been at each other's throats. He was the prey. Sully wanted a hold of him, but he had to go through James's mother to get his hands on him.

  An hour later Sully runs James to school. They take the back roads, listening to the odd swish of puddles beneath the tyres. He watches Sully's hands riding the steering-wheel, flipping it this way and that. They trundle down Nurse's Hill, and join the long procession of school traffic. Sully reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out his tobacco. He throws the pouch into James's lap. ‘Roll me one, and pack it loose, do you hear? Go on.’

  Sully sneaks sidelong glances at him, and when they stop at a set of traffic-lights watches him more openly. ‘Lightly … That's it … Roll it lightly, otherwise it'll be as tight as a monkey's arse.’

  James's forefingers and thumbs work the paper and tobacco. Then he brings it to his lips and licks the paper's gum, for a moment believing that every flick of his tongue is bleeding poison on to the paper, a deadly Sully-killing poison.

  He hands over the cigarette to Sully, who inspects it, holding it out in front of his eyes, the cigarette lying horizontally across his bunched fingertips. The lights have changed and the backed-up cars behind them rev their engines in gathering impatience. Sully is not to be hurried.

  A horn sounds. James shifts uneasily in his seat, and throws a quick look over his shoulder: the horns are hooting now with more urgency. He knows that Sully is making a point. He's letting him know who's boss in the troubled mess of their small world. Sully now has the cigarette between his lips and lights it, his other hand shifting the van into first gear as the lights go to amber. The first billow of smoke comes from his lips as the van moves left on to High Street, leaving the traffic behind him stuck on another red light, their horns blaring in fury.

  ‘Good cigarette, kiddo. Good draw.’

  They arrive at the school. Sully parks, pulling hard on the handbrake. They sit there for a moment watching the stream of boys arrive. Sully finishes his cigarette, drawing on it right down to the nub, his mouth pursed to get at the last dregs of nicotine. He stubs it aggressively in the ashtray. James can sense him looking at him. Father Boyle stands watch outside the heavy oak door of the school, separating any boys who are too boisterous and pushing them inside the doorway with a strong thrust of his hand.

  ‘Jimmy … I … You're a good kid, you mean well,’ Sully says.

  Carefully James places his hand on the door handle, letting it rest there, feeling a throb in his wrist.

  ‘It's just … Listen, it's just your mum's … delicate.’

  But James is not interested. He opens the van door and steps down, his satchel clattering from the seat on to the tarmac. He retrieves it hurriedly, stuffs his exercise book and pens back inside, and walks round the front of the van as Sully fires it into life. As he passes Sully winds down his window, catching James half-way to the school door. ‘Hey, kiddo, don't let that monkey over there fuck you about.’

  With a toot of the horn Sully speeds away down the school drive, his free arm waving a triumphant farewell from the driver's window.

  ‘The bastard,’ James mutters to himself.

  ‘Master La very.’

  He turns to see Father Boyle bearing down on him. He takes James's earlobe between his forefinger and thumb and steers him towards the school entrance. On tiptoe, James complies, his ear stretched in pain.

  ‘If that layabout was a blood relation of yours both you and he would be in serious trouble … Now, about your day, my boy.’

  The Last Moments of a True Believer

  I had a feeling they were both spies. I didn't fully realise it until they rounded on me this morning in the kitchen of Gestapo Headquarters. All the pretence on their faces fell away, and I saw them as they really are: liars, thieves and, worst of all, traitorous spies. But although I had always distrusted him, I thought that somewhere she still believed in me, believed in our cause. Unfortunately that was not the case, and when I saw her betray me in front of him this morning, I knew the Fatherland was in jeopardy as soon as she began to cry those false tears, those whiny, poor-me tears.

  You told me always to be on the lookout, to be wary of those closest, but I never for a moment thought my own mother, your wife, would side with the enemy. You always said that the English were never to be trusted, that they were the most cunning race on the planet, even more so than our inscrutable allies, the Japanese. You said betrayal was everywhere, and today I saw it in the harsh eyes of Commandant Sully, and grasped that he was a traitor to his backbone, and that over the past few years he had quietly worked his evil propaganda
on my poor, deluded mother.

  She would rather have his love, have his traitor's hands on her skin, than the one true love of a son, and the undying love of our Glorious Fatherland, for which you gave your only life, dear Father. You see I knew this morning, even before the incident in the Gestapo kitchen when he lost his temper with me. I saw his face in the cockpit of one of the English planes I shot down. It was then that I understood, and I felt such a fool.

  I also know he has poisoned me. It occurred in the staff vehicle as he was taking me to my next assignment. He asked me to roll a cigarette for him. It was only as I was handing it to him that I realised with a shudder that the gum on the paper was laced with a deadly barbiturate. Before I go, I am determined to unmask them to the world, to bring the full vengeance of the Third Reich down on their treacherous heads. I look forward to seeing you, my father, in our glorious German Heaven. I feel a cold shadow move across my heart, I know it won't be long. I have less time than I thought … I have so much to do … Farewell and hello, dear Father.

  Your son

  General James von Lavery

  8. Plug and the Big ’Ammer

  James is standing in the history corridor with Plug. They are waiting for the class before them to leave. They lean nonchalantly against the wall, killing time, watching their classmates assemble around them in the vague semblance of a queue.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Did you go?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I heard that bit, Plug.’

  Plug is his best friend, called Plug because he has small ears that remind people of the character from the Beano. They had first met a few years before when they had both arrived at St Patrick's. His father owns a couple of small hardware shops, one in the town and another across the border in Dundalk. He has three sisters, each a tiny feminine replica of him, with the same flawless openness to their faces. James has visited his house many times. He loves the fuss Plug's mother makes of him, and the gentle way his father smiles at him whenever he arrives.